Fireproof

Jeffery was willing to blur the line between news and sensationalism. There seemed to be nothing that couldn’t be “touched up,” “edited out,” “beefed up,” or “deleted.” No wonder she was starting to feel like a paparazzo.
    Finally back home, Sam watched her son and mother making cookie dough. Her mother explained the instructions to Iggy inEnglish and he would repeat them back to her in Spanish. It was their way of helping each other learn. It would take them a couple of hours, rolling out the dough, using the heart-shaped cookie cutters, baking, then frosting and decorating them. Her son wanted to make enough to take to school. Sam left them downstairs to take a long bath and read in the bathtub—a rare treat.
    The week had taken its toll. She immersed herself in the warm water and felt the tension start to slip away from her muscles. Without effort her mind drifted to Patrick Murphy—his soft brown eyes, the sexy dimple in his chin, his thick hair with the spiky cowlick that gave him that reckless, boyish charm.
    It was ridiculous for her to be thinking this way. He was too young for her. There was no doubt about that. Barely out of college and starting his career, his life. Sam had lived a lifetime of experiences already. At thirty she felt far too old and too cynical for someone like Patrick, who was just beginning his career. Nor did she have the patience to entertain a fling. It was best to get him out of her mind.
    She lay back and closed her eyes. She lost track of time and started to doze. She wanted to soak out the tension from the week, relieve her senses from the smell of smoke and the sounds of sirens and glass shattering. It would take more than a warm bath to settle the chaos that stayed with her. In fact, she could still smell the smoke as if it radiated off her body. Then she remembered what Wes Harper had said about burning flesh: “The arms and legs are the first to go.”
    Something was burning. She really could smell it. It wasn’t her imagination.
    She bolted upright, sending water over the edge of the tub. Something inside the house was on fire.

CHAPTER 57

    Sam found her mother on a chair, trying to hit the screaming smoke alarm with the handle of a broom, only she kept missing and smacking the wall. Her son stood in the corner of the kitchen, his hands over his ears, but he was laughing at his nanna despite the smoke still belching from the oven. If Sam hadn’t been dripping wet in only her robe, if her heart hadn’t been racing out of control, she might have laughed, too. Her mother did look like she was trying to swat down a piñata.
    “It’s not funny,” Sam told her son, sounding too much like her mother. She put her hand around her mother’s waist. “Momma, leave it.”
    “It so loud.”
    “We’ll clear the smoke and it’ll stop.”
    Her mother didn’t look convinced, but she let Sam help her down off the chair.
    “What happened?”
    “We were watching TV,” Iggy confessed, no longer laughing and watching his nanna to see if it was okay to tell.
    They had become close these past years while Sam trudged around the world with Jeffery. Sometimes she found herself jealousof their closeness. Even now he wanted to protect his grandmother and didn’t like tattling on her, even when the entire house smelled of burned cookies.
    Sam opened the window. Cold air filled the room but the smoke and smell lifted quickly.
    “It’s okay,” she told them both when the alarm finally stopped screeching.
    Her mother pulled out the cookie sheet and shook her head. “Such a waste.”
    “Leave it,” Sam said. “I’m taking you both out to dinner.”
    They stared at her like she was speaking in a foreign language neither of them understood. She realized she couldn’t remember how long it had been since the three of them had eaten out.
    “I get to choose the restaurant.”
    Iggy and his nanna exchanged looks.
    “Go on.” Sam waved her hands at them. “Go get cleaned up. And dressed up.”
    Sam was ready before they were. She had found a skirt she hadn’t worn in years and put on a long sweater and high boots. When her mother came down the stairs in a burgundy knit dress and the peacock-print scarf Sam had brought her from Italy, Sam hardly recognized the beautiful woman before her.
    “This is all right?” her mother asked, worried by Sam’s dumbfounded stare.
    She kissed her mother’s cheek and said, “You look so pretty.”
    Her crusty, nagging mother